Codex Preview RPG Codex Preview: Knights of the Chalice 2 - Augury of Chaos

[Jaedar]

If you have to win initiative to beat the fight then what's the point of making you roll for it?

I think this is hitting the nail on the head. If you have to reload the first turn until you win initiative or succeed at 90%+ of the saving throws you may as well not have either of it and just assume the player already reloaded 20 times. Anything else is just wasting time for no reason (except appealing to masochists apparently).

This review does make the engine seem kind of cool though, a shame the content seems atrocious to the point of hostility towards the audience.

 

[Dorateen]

I started Augury of Chaos the day after release. I was thrilled with party creation and enjoying the introductory chapel of chaos. Then I hit a save corrupting bug. That and the initial negative feedback soured me from playing further at the moment. So instead, I delved into the Module Editor. It has been fun to work with, and also enabled me to gain a better understanding of how the mechanics and systems work. Knights of the Chalice 2 is a solid game engine and near perfect for designing a traditional D&D type experience.

 

[Dickie]

Roxor states that many encounters can be won only by lucky rolls. I can't understand how can a person create an encounter without noticing that it can be won only by luck. Had Pierre at least once tried to win each encounter he designed?

Did you watch Pierre's videos where he loses all the battles? Out of five combat videos, he outright loses three, wins one, and ends one just before they wipe out the last of his party.





Pretty sure he was gonna lose this one:

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

But it is winnable, right?

 

[Grauken]

Excellent review

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Roxor states that many encounters can be won only by lucky rolls. I can't understand how can a person create an encounter without noticing that it can be won only by luck. Had Pierre at least once tried to win each encounter he designed?

Did you watch Pierre's videos where he loses all the battles? Out of five combat videos, he outright loses three, wins one, and ends one just before they wipe out the last of his party.

Spoiler

Pretty sure he was gonna lose this one:

So it is something like that:

"Hehehehe I suck at this game, but people who will play it are so good, I guess they gonna win this easy"

 

[luj1]

The queen is a level 22 wizard with nearly 600 HP and all the spells and pre-buffs that I outlined earlier. She opens with accelerated spell and a double cast of prismatic void. As if that were not enough, after a few more turns, a gigantic adamantine statue comes to life from out of nowhere, with two more caster spiders. I think the statue can do twelve attacks a turn with its four magic two-handed weapons, though I’m not even sure anymore.

 

[Tweed]

Pretty much sums the whole thing up. Every battle is a white-knuckled fight to the death and it only gets harder as you go deeper, with the every later fight being "win initiative or reload" and "first round everyone down". A combination of morbid curiosity, sunk costs, and the fact that several of us were suffering together helped drive me onward to victory. I also got a little buzz from being able to wipe most of the crap out in Chapter 4 without too much hassle on my inevitable replay after I messed up the first time.

Amazingly enough, I had no trouble getting through the dreaded courtyard battle in Chapter 4, nailed it the first time.

All with my beloved kobolds.

 

[luj1]

Is there any way to create an OP party here?

 

[cruelio]

Is there any way to create an OP party here?

Smash the wizard button six times during character creation. Somebody allegedly got through the module that way (hey I got through KOTC1 with two clerics and two wizards). I suspect the six wizard person required a lot of reloading that wasn’t divulged, but that’s the KOTC2 experience anyway.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

The queen is a level 22 wizard with nearly 600 HP and all the spells and pre-buffs that I outlined earlier. She opens with accelerated spell and a double cast of prismatic void. As if that were not enough, after a few more turns, a gigantic adamantine statue comes to life from out of nowhere, with two more caster spiders. I think the statue can do twelve attacks a turn with its four magic two-handed weapons, though I’m not even sure anymore.

Firkraag, level 23 dragon- 184 HP. 600 HP is more than 3 Firkaags worth of HP.

 

[Darth Canoli]

The queen is a level 22 wizard with nearly 600 HP and all the spells and pre-buffs that I outlined earlier. She opens with accelerated spell and a double cast of prismatic void. As if that were not enough, after a few more turns, a gigantic adamantine statue comes to life from out of nowhere, with two more caster spiders. I think the statue can do twelve attacks a turn with its four magic two-handed weapons, though I’m not even sure anymore

The statue could be lethal if you think you can continue to focus on the Spider Queen to get rid of the higher threat.
And yet a simple improved grease or quicksand spell and a warrior or a good summon rushing it when it's down and the threat is no more.

About the Queen, yes, it's really tough and yet, it's an optional battle.
The whining bitches are complaining because they can't steamroll all the optional battles while the "true path" isn't that hard, really, during chapter 2/3, a couple of key spells and a skewer weapon will get you through all of them.

Sure, it coul involve some reloads but just a few, really, it's nowhere near as tough as the little princesses here say it is.

Most of them broke their nails while playing KotC 2, that's why they're so butthurt...

 

[Darth Roxor]

the funny thing about the statue is that i killed it on "first try" (meaning: after successfully shutting down the spider queen) in both my playthroughs

i think in the first one i lucked out on grease, while in the second i somewhat effectively disarmed it with blind and suppress sword

and like i mentioned before with regard to the general design philosophy, the statue in itself is not the or even a problem - the problem is that its presence in this particular fight with all the other stuff you have to wade through is just patently ridiculous

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Good stuff. Entertaining review as always from Råtten. Shame about the game - I had high hopes but looks like the engine might be a promising platform for game designers to work with. I backed it on kickstarter but will wait to play it in case magic happens.

 

[artakserkso]

the cost is 1250 gold times the target level, so it keeps growing exponentially

delet this

 

[Mortmal]

Review is good except the conclusion, kotc 2 doesnt portray D&d mechanisms so good since it completely ignore the CR system . If you do that in pnp people will never ask you to DM again. BG3 and solasta are better choice for true computer D&D .No , review is not harsh , i could say worse and even add the very small quantity of content is hidden by the absurdly hard encounters, it would be completed in 5 hours if it was balanced.

 

[Dickie]

That generic skeleton fighter with a +7 enchantment level weapon. Atk +23...

 

[cruelio]

That generic skeleton fighter with a +7 enchantment level weapon. Atk +23...

The second fight in the game has an enemy with a +1 icy longsword when your guys are level 1. He can one shot not just pathetic d6 or even d8 characters but even a d10 character with good con.

Of course, you don't get to pick up the sword when he dies. Your reward is to keep punching yourself in the balls.

 

[cruelio]

I figured Kingmaker resorted to cheap tricks like giving every monster enemy barbarian levels because they knew their AI was bad and that was the only way they were going to challenge players. Pierre, bizarrely, doesn't get that out because his AI is shockingly good. It may actually be the best AI in a CRPG I've ever played.

 

[felipepepe]

The review is spot on, I hope Pierre takes the criticism to heart and change his plans.

Since I doubt he'll go back and rebalance every battle in Augury of Chaos (probably not worth the effort), he should make a new campaign that's more carefully planned and present it as the initial module for the game's full release. Even if it's short, I think the important part is showcasing the game's strengths, it's massive bestiary, aggressive AI and complex ruleset. If the game launches just with Augury of Chaos, it will get abysmal reviews by players and journos and no one will even bother to try the module editor.

 

[Dickie]

Since I doubt he'll go back and rebalance every battle in Augury of Chaos (probably not worth the effort)

I think it's worth the effort. The Steam reviews and message boards will crush this game if he releases this mess. He probably needs to at least remove half the equipment from enemies and not make it a cheat mode to turn on in the options. I don't think he'll sell a million copies on there, but a "Mixed" or "Negative" rating aggregate on an indie game isn't gonna help anything.

Well, I guess it's possible that he only plans to sell the copies he's already sold in the Kickstarter. His goals are always difficult to discern. This is the same guy who didn't want the first Knights of the Chalice on GOG, but he wanted Battle of the Sands on there.

 

[Dickie]

Oh, wow, he did read some complaints about difficulty.

Well, I will have another think about the difficulty. I could create another difficulty setting like 'reduced adventure difficulty' that would use scripts to remove some enemies at particularly difficult places and add some extra campfires. That way, you could still play with the original difficulty level too.

He's gonna call it something to indicate it's an easy mode, though...

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1083760/discussions/0/2989789048621552891/

 

[Bastardchops]

The actual art is good.

The token and portrait art is some of the worst I've seen in an RPG.

 

[Tacgnol]

Oh, wow, he did read some complaints about difficulty.

Well, I will have another think about the difficulty. I could create another difficulty setting like 'reduced adventure difficulty' that would use scripts to remove some enemies at particularly difficult places and add some extra campfires. That way, you could still play with the original difficulty level too.

He's gonna call it something to indicate it's an easy mode, though...

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1083760/discussions/0/2989789048621552891/

If he calls the current state "normal mode" he'll get crucified on steam and GOG and, in true Pierre fashion, he'll completely misunderstand the criticism.

His response to most of the difficulty complaints the last few months has just been to add cheat options, none of which address the actual issues.

 

[NJClaw]

Review is good except the conclusion, kotc 2 doesnt portray D&d mechanisms so good since it completely ignore the CR system . If you do that in pnp people will never ask you to DM again.

I ignore the CR system and my players have no problem with it. The CR system of 3.x notoriously does not work properly.

I'm not saying that Pierre's solution is ideal, just that you can't blindly rely on monster's CR to build encounters.